1. Technical Field
The present invention relates in general to improved management of voice mail and in particular to automatically prioritizing voice mail messages and removing unwanted or unsolicited voice mail messages.
2. Description of the Related Art
The Internet has opened a variety of new ways for people to communicate with one another. For example, email services and instant messaging services facilitate communication by allowing users to send messages to one another; with email, messages are sent from mailbox to mailbox and with instant messaging, messages are sent in real-time from one user interface to another.
One limitation of communications facilitated via the Internet is the lack of regulation that leaves users open to receiving an influx of unwanted communications. Many users have experienced opening an email mailbox only to find a mailbox loaded with unsolicited and unwanted emails. This unsolicited and unwanted email is colloquially referred to as spam. In response to increasing amounts of spam, email service providers and third party developers continue to develop spam filtering tools that attempt to remove spam from email mailboxes, while leaving wanted emails.
Another type of communication facilitated by the Internet is Voice over Internet Protocol (IP), also referred to as VoIP, IPTelephony, Internet telephony or digital phone. VoIP refers to the routing of voice conversations over the Internet or other IP based networks. With VoIP, voice data flows over a general-purpose packet-switched network, instead of traditional dedicated, circuit-switched voice transmission lines. Protocols used to carry voice signals over the IP network are commonly referred to as VoIP protocols. Thus, VOIP enables a computer system communicatively connected to the Internet to function as a telephony device. As facilitated by a VoIP service provider or VoIP application software, through a computer system, a user can place a call to a telephone number or receive a call placed to a telephone number at the computer system.
In addition to providing VoIP voice service, VoIP service providers may also provide many of the same types of services that are now often included with or offered with standard wired and wireless telephone service. For example, just as normal telephony service providers provide voice mail systems, which facilitate a caller leaving a message for an intended recipient who is not available to receive the call and store the messages as voice mail messages in a voice mailbox, VoIP service providers may provide voice mail systems for storing voice mail messages left for a user.
While VoIP has many advantages, there are also disadvantages to VoIP. In particular one disadvantage of VoIP is that like email, VoIP provides a medium through which a telemarketer or other person can send multiple simultaneous messages, often untraced. Through a VoIP connection, a single caller can send out thousands of voice messages simultaneously into phones or voice mailboxes at little cost. Thus, the emergence of VoIP mailboxes provides a new target location for unwanted and unsolicited messages, in the form of VoIP voice mail messages. These unwanted and unsolicited VoIP voice mail messages are often colloquially referred to as spam over Internet Telephony (SPIT). Unlike spam that a user can view as entries and delete without reading, to identify and delete unwanted voice mail, however, with VoIP voice mail messages a user must first listen to the voice mail, identify the voice mail as unwanted, and then delete the voice mail. Further, unlike spam that may only use minimal storage space, VoIP voice mail messages typically require more storage space and thus each undesirable voice mail message using storage space is more burdensome. Therefore, in view of the foregoing, there is a need for a method, system, and program for managing VoIP voice mailboxes to filter out and automatically delete unwanted voice mail messages or facilitate user selection to quickly delete unwanted voice mail messages.